A little over a year ago, Transmeta made the transition from being a company that produces low-power chips to a company that licenses patents and does R&D. With such a transition to licensing as a primary source of revenue, lawsuits were pretty much inevitable, especially since the company continues to lose money.

Now Transmeta has launched its first high-profile lawsuit, and it’s a doozy. The company is taking on Intel in US District Court in Delaware with a suit alleging that Intel’s entire x86 microprocessor line, from the Pentium Pro on down to the present day, infringes on one or more of ten patents. Transmeta is asking for treble damages, attorney’s fees, a licensing deal, and the whole nine yards. So they’re swinging for the fences here, and if they score it could be huge. Transmeta alleges that Intel has made over $100 billion on the processors at issue in this case, and if the suit doesn’t go their way it may be cheaper for them to just buy the beleaguered company than to settle.

Source: arstechnica